


now i found you (don’t know what to do)

by hudders-and-hiddles (huddersandhiddles)



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Banter, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, couchsurfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-15 17:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19300564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huddersandhiddles/pseuds/hudders-and-hiddles
Summary: Stevie has decided to rent out their sofa for the weekend, and David can't imagine a worse hell than three nights with a stranger sleeping right outside his door.





	now i found you (don’t know what to do)

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to the wonderful Em ([goingmywaydoll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll)) for betaing this one for me and to Darcy for planting the seed of this idea to start with.

It’s been a long fucking day. A messy, one-fiasco-after-another, eternal hell kind of day that makes David question whether or not he’s really cut out to run a business.

At this point he’s actually pretty sure it’s beyond a question. It’s a full blown fact—he’s not cut out for this. He’s not really sure he’s cut out for anything, unless wallowing in self-loathing is now something for which you need to be qualified. Perhaps there’s a certificate he can get for that over at the college in Elmdale, a framed piece of paper that declares him adept at nothing but perpetuating his own misery.

Speaking of misery, he rounds the corner for home and spies an unfamiliar sedan parked at the curb, and he realizes his hopes for a relaxing evening in front of the tv, accompanied by a pizza or three and maybe a few shots of that whiskey Stevie keeps atop the fridge, have all shattered on the pavement, just like the case of body milks he’d dropped on his way into the store this morning.

That’s what had kicked off this entire disaster of a day, and from there, things had only gotten worse. He’d stopped by the insurance agent’s office to discover she only works Mondays and Tuesdays for some godforsaken reason. Then he’d tried following up with the electrician for the third time; at least someone had finally picked up the line for once, but the voice on the phone had informed him that Carl is apparently in rehab, which means David’s store still has no lights, which means he still can’t do any work there after dark. Ted had dropped by to ask about the discount for next week’s opening celebration and Ronnie about the guest list and Roland, who he hadn’t even invited to the opening, about both. Then just as he was leaving, a moth had tried to murder him, flying directly at his eyes like a kamikaze pilot on a mission, and as he’d shrieked and tried to flee, his sweater had caught on a splinter on the doorframe, ripping a fingertip-sized hole in the hem. He’s pretty sure the winged spawn of satan had ended up trapped in the store, too, and now he’s going to have to burn the whole building down and start again, though he should probably wait until he gets the insurance before he goes looking for a lighter.

After all that, all he wants is a quiet, peaceful night in, but he’d forgotten that Stevie had decided to turn their home into a shitty motel, luring who knows what kind of drifters to sleep under their shitty, leaking roof.

Fuck. He’d forgotten to call someone about the roof, too. There have been buckets and bowls strewn across their living room floor like stepping stones for weeks now, and David can’t stand the sight of them anymore, which is how the duty of calling a… plumber? Is that who you call to fix a leak? Whoever it is that you call, the responsibility of calling them had fallen to him. Stevie, for her part, is entirely unbothered by the fact that they live in a dump, or perhaps it’s just that she enjoys how much David hates it more than she actually hates it herself.

Either way, she had decided that they could use the extra money (they could—on that he can agree) and rented out their dilapidated sofa under their holey roof to some friend of a friend of a friend for the weekend. Three nights with a stranger sleeping right outside his door is David’s idea of hell, but as the house is technically Stevie’s, he hadn’t been able to put up much more than a token argument. Not that that had stopped him from trying, of course. But after all these years, Stevie’s heart has become hardened and cold—or maybe she’s just learned that she can wait out David’s bullshit—and so she’d let him talk until he had tired of listening to himself, told him this is what they’re doing, and walked away with a handful of his french fries.

He trudges up to the house, opening the door with the kind of reluctance usually reserved for haunted houses or public restrooms. Thankfully, silence greets him, and he plops his bag down on the little entryway table, hoping that Stevie has taken their guest out somewhere for the evening.

“Hi.”

David yelps. Shrieks perhaps. Something closer to blood-curdling than merely surprised at least and far more than the situation probably calls for.

The man standing in the kitchen doorway has the nerve to laugh, and David dislikes him immediately.

“Sorry,” the man apologizes, though the smile still camped out on his face says he probably isn’t very sorry at all. “You must be David.” He approaches with a hand extended, and David takes it automatically: spending your life with an entrepreneur for a father will instill that in you at least, even if none of the actual business acumen seems to have been absorbed along with it. “I’m Patrick. Brewer.”

Patrick’s hand is soft and warm, much like his eyes, and if David hadn’t already decided to dislike him, he might be tempted into smiling back.

“Thanks for letting me crash on your sofa this weekend.”

David glances at the sofa with its threadbare cushions and broken springs, then at the trail of empty containers dotting the floor in some horrific constellation no one would care to make a story about, and thinks that if it were him, the last thing he would do is thank someone for letting him sleep here. Hell, he wouldn’t be staying here either if he had a choice—if he hadn’t given the finger to his meddlesome parents, if Stevie hadn’t been the only person he knew would take him in.

“I actually voted against it,” David says because he’s an asshole and Patrick might as well know that now; it’ll make the weekend go that much smoother if they can start avoiding each other right away.

“Huh. And how does that work,” Patrick asks, “with just you and Stevie splitting the vote?”

“Oh, when it doesn’t go her way, she insists that we go on the percentage of the bills we paid that month. She won 60-40 this time.”

Patrick buries his hands deep in the pockets of his unfortunate, mid-range jeans and looks at David like he thinks he’s being cute. “Well, then I guess just half-thanks then. Or more like 40 percent.” The grin on his face grows wider, and okay, maybe he is kinda cute, but that doesn’t make up for the extreme inconvenience of his presence here for the weekend. “I’ll be sure to give Stevie the other 60 percent of my thanks when she gets back from the store.”

“Mmkay.” David doesn’t know what to make of Patrick, standing here teasing him in his own living room barely thirty seconds after he’s walked in the door. Who does that? He weighs the consequences of leaving some vagrant to freely roam their house and possibly steal whatever few worthwhile possessions he might find while David retreats to his room, against the thought of having to continue this awkward conversation. The call of his bed easily wins out. Besides, most of the stuff in the house is Stevie’s, and if she didn’t want someone to steal her things, she shouldn’t have invited a transient into their home in the first place. “Well, it was very… something… to meet you, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pop a pill, cry a little, and fall asleep early.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It is.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.” David gives him one last look up and down—god, what even are those shoes he’s wearing?—scoops up his bag, and turns on his heel. He’s just reaching for the door to his bedroom when Patrick calls after him. “It was very something to meet you, too, David.”

David doesn’t look back, just slips into the cool, peaceful darkness of his room. There’s a valium with his name on it, and not even some weirdly charming itinerant is going to keep him from it.

 

*

 

Coffee.

David needs coffee, and he lets the need drag him from his bed, bleary-eyed and messy-haired, lurching toward a source like a heat-seeking missile. He yanks the bedroom door open just as the bathroom door across the hall opens, and he lets out an inelegant squawk of surprise, finding Patrick once again grinning back at him.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” he says, clouds of clean, soap-scented fog rolling out the door all around him.

David rolls his eyes because this isn’t some kind of meet-cute. This isn’t a movie. In two hours they aren’t going to run off into the sunset together just because Patrick throws out cheesy lines like _we have got to stop meeting like this_.

He staggers toward the kitchen, not bothering with being a polite host and asking Patrick how he slept or anything like that. He already knows the answer anyway: there’s no way to sleep on that sofa except poorly. He wouldn’t be surprised if Patrick asked them for his money back for the remaining two nights and goes off in search of somewhere else to sleep. Actually, maybe David could suggest it.

In the kitchen, there’s a fresh pot of the pricey, small-batch French roast that he always keeps on hand, and knowing that Stevie never touches anything less powerful than four shots of espresso at once, David knows that she certainly isn’t the one who brewed it.

He rounds on Patrick who’s just trailing into the kitchen behind him. “Did you touch my coffee?”

In the face of David’s ire, he flinches away, and okay, maybe David could be a little nicer to him, but it is expensive coffee and he’s not exactly made of money. Anymore. “Uh, yeah, Stevie told me I could make a pot if I wanted. I figured that meant she’d drink some, but I guess not.”

David looks at the pot again. “You didn’t drink any.” It’s not a question. The pot is still full.

Patrick shrugs. “I’m more of a tea drinker.”

That only confuses David more. “So you made coffee—which you weren’t planning to drink—because…?”

“I was being nice?”

“Oh.” David isn’t used to nice. “Okay, um…” What are you supposed to say when a stranger is nice and makes you coffee in your own home? “Thanks?” he tries.

Judging by the way Patrick’s mouth curves into a little smile, he thinks that must have been the right choice. “You’re welcome.” While David pours himself a cup, stirring in far too much sugar, he asks, “So any big plans for today?”

“We don’t have to do this,” David says because even if Patrick’s nice, David’s still an asshole. Doubly so before he’s hit his daily quota of caffeine.

“Do what?”

He flings a hand back and forth between the two of them. “Whatever this is.”

“I think it’s called conversation,” Patrick says, and David hates that that little smile on his lips just won’t seem to go away. It’s adorable, and he doesn’t want to look at it.

He really doesn’t have to either, so he picks up his coffee and heads back toward his bedroom, telling Patrick, “I don’t do conversation.”

“You don’t _do_ conversation,” he repeats, following David from the room. He really wishes he wouldn’t.

“No, generally not before 9 a.m. at least. I’m not really a morning person.”

Patrick laughs, the warm, bright sound of it swooping airily in David’s belly, the way it feels when you miss a step or crest the hill of a rollercoaster, like some sudden and unexpected fall. “That is shocking news.” He pulls his phone from the pocket of yet another pair of terrible jeans and turns on the screen. “Then I guess this conversation is to be continued in… thirty-eight minutes.”

David doesn’t want to ask. He tightens every muscle in his body in an attempt to hold the question back, and still it somehow worms its way from his lips. “What, um, what happens in thirty-eight minutes?”

The smile on Patrick’s face is gone, but David can still see it sparkling in his eyes. “Oh, I can’t tell you that, David. It’s not time for conversation yet.” He puts a finger to his lips and walks away, leaving David staring after him wondering yet again who the hell Stevie had invited into their house.

 

*

 

Breakfast is David’s favorite meal of the day: it’s an excuse to consume copious amounts of sugar and pretend it’s a meal. And the best thing about Cafe Tropical—the only good thing really—is that they serve breakfast all day, which suits David’s inability to leave the house before lunchtime. He’s going to have to find the ability when he opens the store, he supposes, but for now, he’ll enjoy his late starts while they last.

His enjoyment, however, turns around and walks right back out the door as soon as he enters through it because sitting there in his favorite booth is the one person he can’t seem to escape. David freezes, caught between the need for food and the need to flee, some fucked up version of fight-or-flight, but then Patrick waves at him, which means it’s probably too late to make a run for it. And David’s not sure his growling stomach would let him leave now even if he tried.

He looks around for an open table, and somehow, every single one is taken, even the booth with the broken seat that stabs you every time you shift your weight. In the two years he’s lived here since upending his entire life in New York, that’s never once happened, and it feels a bit like the universe is conspiring against him, as if yesterday’s container of bad luck overflowed and is spilling right into today. His only options are to pile in at the counter next to Ivan, who is almost certainly trying (and miserably failing) to flirt with Twyla in the middle of the lunch rush, or to order something to-go and eat it at the store, hoping that the smell of pancakes doesn’t somehow attract the moth that had dive-bombed him yesterday.

Patrick waves again, and David pretends not to see him as he tries to decide which option is worse. And then a third option presents itself.

“This place is busier than I expected,” Patrick says as he approaches, looking around at all the occupied tables. It’s probably the most impressed anyone has ever looked with the cafe since it opened. “You can join me, if you want.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No, I’d like to.”

Nice, David thinks. Patrick is being nice. Again. It’s weird. David has very little experience with nice. His old friends weren’t nice. Most of his exes definitely weren’t nice. Hell, his own family wasn’t really even nice—nice and successful aren’t exactly common bedfellows. Of anyone he knows, Stevie probably comes the closest, but even she is generally begrudging at best. And that works great for them because David finds it hard to trust _nice_.

But he looks at the painful confusion on Twyla’s face where Ivan is making his latest attempt to woo her, and he attempts to calculate the potential for moth attacks, and then he weighs both options against the admittedly less unappealing option of sharing a table with Patrick and sighs. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

“So what’s good here?” Patrick asks as they slide into opposite sides of the booth, and David grimaces.

“Honestly, not much. But as long as you stay away from the smoothies, you at least won’t get salmonella or ebola or something. Probably.”

“Noted.”

David isn’t great at small talk, so they mostly sit in awkward silence until Twyla takes their orders. But without a menu to focus on, Patrick seems less content to just linger in the quiet.

“What do you do around here, David?”

“I am in the process of starting my own business actually.”

For some reason, Patrick’s eyes light up at that. “What kind of business?”

The question takes David by surprise, even though it really shouldn’t. He’s just not used to people not knowing about the store. Schitt’s Creek is a small town, and everyone here knows everything about everyone, which means he hasn’t really had to explain the business to anyone. Practically as soon as he’d had the first inkling of a thought of taking over the old general store, everyone seemed to have already known about it, talking about it like it was a done deal. Even when he’d gone to fill out the paperwork to apply for his business license, they hadn’t discussed it; Ray had simply handed him a form to complete (which he may have gone back for a second and eventually a third copy of before he managed to fill it out well enough to submit it) and sent him on his way.

“Um, well, it’s a store,” he says, trying to decide how best to explain it.

“Okay.”

“It’s, uh, it’s a general store. But it’s also a _very specific store_.” Patrick doesn’t look like he understands what that means, so David keeps going. “It’s also not just a store though. It’ll be a place where people can come to get coffee or wine, but it’s not a coffee shop, nor is it a bar.”

Patrick’s mouth tilts into that same amused smile he’d worn last night when he’d first caught David by surprise. “Sounds like you’re pretty clear on what it’s not.”

He isn’t getting it, and it shouldn’t even matter if he does, but he had asked and so David doesn’t want to let it go without at least making the effort. “It’s an environment,” he explains. “Like a branded, immersive experience.”

“A branded… immersive… very specific general store?” Patrick’s ridiculous, smirking mouth asks.

“Correct.”

“I gotta say, I honestly don’t know what that means, David.” He’s laughing now, and as much as David’s annoyed by it, it’s also strangely charming. Not that Patrick is laughing at him, but the way that his whole face lights up with it, like he’s absolutely delighted. “But if _you_ know what you mean, I guess that’s all that matters.”

David’s saved from subjecting himself to any more of Patrick’s laughter by the arrival of their food. He digs into his pancakes with vigor, both because he’s starving and because the quicker he eats, the quicker he can escape this conversation.

“So does your store have a name then?” Patrick asks between bites of his club sandwich.

“It does, but I’m not sure I want to tell you because you’ll probably just laugh at that, too.”

Patrick at least has the good sense to look contrite, which is, unfortunately, yet another cute look for him. David’s beginning to think that maybe there isn’t any look that _isn’t_ attractive on him. “You know I’m not making fun of you, right? I’m sure your store is going to be great. You seem very passionate about it at least, and that’s a good start.”

Sincerity also goes on the list of good looks, up toward the top, and David takes another bite of his breakfast to distract his mouth from the mollified smile that wants to form there.

They eat in silence for a while, less stilted than before. “Rose Apothecary,” he says finally.

It takes a moment for Patrick to connect it back to the abandoned thread of their conversation, but when he does, his eyes brighten, like he’s been let in on some thrilling secret. “I like it. It’s… timeless.”

It’s David’s turn to laugh. “Is that what you would call it?”

“Why? What would you call it?”

He thinks for a moment, about whether or not to be honest, but ultimately what does he have to lose? He shrugs. “I’d call it pretentious.”

Patrick smiles at that, bright and genuine, and David returns his smile in spite of himself. “Yeah, okay, I could see that. But what’s wrong with a little pretension?”

“Nothing,” he says, wondering if maybe Patrick understands his store a little better than he’d let on. “Nothing at all.”

 

*

 

He’s been hard at work for a few hours when the bell over the front door chimes out its irritating little greeting, which makes David realize he has once again forgotten to lock the damn door. “Sorry, we’re not open,” he calls without turning around, placing another bottle on the back display shelf and lining it up precisely with the others.

“I’m not here to shop,” comes a newly familiar voice, and David glances over his shoulder to find Patrick standing in his store, looking around at all his half-finished displays. Once the initial jolt of surprise finishes surging through him, David tries to gauge what that look means. After their earlier conversation, is the store what he’d expected? Does he like it? It shouldn’t matter, but it does. David hates that it does.

But when Patrick’s eyes land on him, he nods and says, “I get it now. It’s nice,” and that swooping feeling rushes through David’s stomach again.

“Thanks. Can I— can I help you with something?” He picks up another bottle, mostly to look busy. He should look busy. That seems important.

“Actually I was hoping I could help you with something.”

“Oh.” He sets the bottle back down. Why would Patrick want to help him? People don’t generally offer to help David without expecting something in return, but David can’t begin to imagine what Patrick might want from him, though maybe Patrick doesn’t want anything at all. Patrick is nice, he reminds himself. Nice people do things like this. Or so he’s heard. Patrick is looking at him though, expecting him to say something, anything really, and surely David can think of some response, but at the moment the whole of the English language seems to have failed him. “Oh,” he says again.

Patrick seems to find that… well, David’s not sure what Patrick might be thinking about that except that he smiles, so David thinks it might be something good. Stepping farther into the store, Patrick picks up a jar of eye serum from the center display table and examines it. “You mentioned you’re supposed to open next week.” He puts the little jar back into place, twisting it just so to face the label outwards, and David’s shoulders relax a fraction of an inch. “And I’ve, uh, I’ve got some time to kill. So I thought maybe I could help out, if you— if you want me.”

Patrick’s face flushes pink as that phrasing seems to work its way through his brain, and David hurries past it for both their sakes.

“Um, why— why would you want to do that?”

“Just thought you might want the help.” The corner of Patrick’s mouth tilts down toward an uncertain frown, like he’s rethinking his offer, and David hurries to find something Patrick can do. It’s either that or reach out and lift that corner of his lips himself, press it back up with his fingers until Patrick is smiling again. It shouldn’t make a difference if Patrick is smiling or not, he tells himself, but somehow a frown on his face just seems incorrect.

“You don’t know anything about wiring, do you?” David asks, gesturing at the wall sconces and wires and bulbs sitting on the counter beside him. Is it too much to hope that Patrick is some kind of vagrant electrician?

“Uh, no.” He chuckles. “No, that’s not really my area of expertise.”

“And what, um…” David crosses and uncrosses his arms. What exactly are arms supposed to do? Do they normally just hang here like this looking stupid? He puts his hands on his hips instead; it at least gives him something to hold on to. “What is your area of expertise exactly?” he asks, meaning it precisely the way Patrick had meant it. Meaning it precisely not that way at all.

Patrick’s grin goes all lopsided, like he knows what it is that David’s doing, and that inexplicably sends a flash of heat licking through David’s belly. “Business,” he says, answering only half the question. “I work as a corporate risk analyst.”

Well that explains all his questions and the way his face had gone all interested when David had started talking about the store. A business major: he probably finds things like inventory and tax seminars interesting. “Mm. Sounds thrilling.”

“Even less than you might think.” Patrick glances around, nodding toward the stock room behind the counter and all the boxes stacked inside. “It does probably qualify me to unpack some of these boxes though, if you want me to.”

“And here I’ve been unpacking boxes without the proper qualifications all this time.”

“Oh, well then you definitely need my help. I wouldn’t want you to get a fine for operating a box cutter without a license.”

“Is that a thing?” David asks, anxious all of a sudden. He really doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

Patrick laughs, shaking his head. It still feels a bit like Patrick is laughing at him rather than with him, but there’s such warmth to it that David finds he doesn’t really mind this time. “No, David, that’s not a thing.”

“Oh. Okay. Well since you’re _so_ qualified, maybe you should start with the boxes of hand cream over there on the left. They’re the heaviest. Thanks so much.”

And with that, they set to work, each unloading boxes and setting products on the displays in companionable silence. The weirdest part of having Patrick’s help is that it isn’t weird at all, that they settle right into it like they’ve done this all their lives, moving around each other with ease. David’s anxiety ratchets up a notch just for not having anything to be anxious about, but the tension in his shoulders eases again as the day goes on. Patrick asks questions about where he wants a set of products to go or how he wants them to be displayed, and David is relieved to find that he’s a quick study, placing everything in tidy rows with pumps and lids and labels all facing the same direction, just the way David likes. Even Stevie doesn’t do that, no matter how many times David bitches at her about it, although that may have more to do with Stevie trying to rile him up than anything else.

In the late afternoon, David pops across the street to grab them a couple drinks and maybe a scone or two from the cafe and returns after a too-long conversation with Twyla about her mother’s boyfriend’s secretary and with Bob about who he and someone named Gwen can bring to the opening next week, to find Patrick on a step ladder with a screwdriver in his hand.

“What are you doing?”

Patrick looks over his shoulder, eyes wide like he’s been caught out. “Oh, um, I opened another box and it was… some kind of blankets? Scarves? I don’t know.” He nods toward the box on the floor which David recognizes as his supply of hand-dyed alpaca wool shawls. “I wasn’t sure where you wanted them, so I thought I’d give this a go instead. Watched a couple YouTube tutorials.”

“Well, that is… very impressive.”

“I’d hold off on that judgment until we see if they even work or not.”

“Fine, I take it all back then,” David replies, hopping up on the center display table and taking a sip of his macchiato as Patrick turns around to finish screwing the sconce into place. David decidedly does not look at his ass, even if it is perfectly placed for ogling. “I’m terribly unimpressed. I’m more unimpressed than I’ve ever been in my life, and I’ve been to two of Paris Hilton’s album launch parties.”

“Wow. Remind me not to invite you to _my_ album launch party then.” Patrick climbs off the ladder and flips the switch, and both lights behind the counter flare to life, sunny and golden. He settles onto the counter across from David with his cup of tea, looking deservedly smug about the whole thing.

Maybe it’s the lights or maybe it’s something else that David refuses to let himself think about, but that warm feeling that’s been lingering in his stomach starts to spread, seeping up between his ribs, trickling down into the muscles of his thighs.  To distract himself from it, he asks, “You’re recording an album?” That seems like an unusual move for a corporate… whatever it was he said he does; David hadn’t really been paying that much attention to that part of the conversation.

“No,” he replies. “Maybe someday though.”

“Let me guess. You play something ridiculous like the accordion.”

Patrick freezes, his expression shuttering. “The accordion isn’t ridiculous, David.”

It takes a long, horrified few seconds before David realizes he’s joking. Patrick grins at him wide and bright around a laugh, and David tears off a piece of his scone and chucks it at him. It misses by a mile. Patrick’s grin only widens.

“I play guitar mostly. That’s why I’m here.”

“Does this town have a happening music scene of which I’m not aware, or…?”

“No, I really can’t imagine it does,” Patrick replies. “There’s a contest at a bar over in Elmdale this weekend. The prize money’s decent, and I wanted to get out of town for a few days anyway, so…” One shoulder hitches up in a shy kind of shrug. “Thought I’d give it a try.”

“Are you any good?” David asks before he realizes it’s probably a rude question.

Patrick shrugs again, this time with both shoulders. “Other people seem to think so. I guess we’ll see.” He takes a bite of his scone, chewing it thoughtfully, before asking, “What about you?”

David is certain his confusion shows on his face: _everything_ shows on his face, so why would his confusion be any different? “Are you asking if I’m secretly aspiring to a music career? Because I can do a mean karaoke version of ‘Always Be My Baby,’ but I don’t think anyone will be signing me to a recording contract any time soon.”

Patrick laughs again, the third time since he’d shown up here this afternoon, not that David’s keeping count. There’s no tally system, no internal confetti cannon that fires off each time David manages to draw that wonderful sound from Patrick’s mouth. Nope. He’s not thinking about what that laugh might feel like pressed against his lips or buried in the curve of his neck at all.

“I meant how did you end up in this town,” Patrick says. “No offense, but you don’t really look like you’re from here exactly.” His gaze rakes up and down the length of David’s body, and if David wasn’t so sure that Patrick must be straight—only a straight guy would own those horrifyingly incorrect shoes—he’d think he was checking him out.

“Oh, you know,” he says, flippant about the whole situation because it’s easier for people to swallow than the bitterness that still suffocates him in his bed at night, “it’s your classic, discovering your family has bought all of your success and you’ve never done anything on your own, giving it all up to start over in the middle of nowhere in an uncharacteristic and completely misguided moment of self-realization, riches-to-rags kind of story.”

Patrick takes that in for a moment, nodding. “Oh, sure,” he says eventually. “We’ve all been there.”

David doesn’t talk about this, not really. Stevie knows, of course—he’d explained all of it when he’d shown up on her doorstep with four, triple-locked titanium suitcases, a cedar chest full of knitwear, and little else to his name. People in town have asked, but he always finds some excuse to change the subject (if he likes them) or simply glares at them until they go away (if he doesn’t). But there’s something welcoming about the way Patrick watches him, waiting for him to go on, and David finds that he doesn’t really mind sharing the story after all.

So he explains how furious he’d been when he’d found out that his parents had been buying all his art—had been buying all his patrons—ever since his gallery had opened four years ago. He explains how he’d discovered it in the middle of a party when someone had pulled him into a little-used room in his family home for a quick fuck (which he realizes too late is probably more information than Patrick needs) and there he’d found stacks and stacks of boxes, large and small and everything in between, all bearing the logo of the Rose Gallery. That was the worst, that they hadn’t even bothered to hide it well. It was a big house, but it wasn’t like it was abandoned. Hell, the door hadn’t even been locked.

It had taken a certain level of carelessness, a callous recklessness or maybe a reckless callousness, to leave the evidence right there in his own home for him to stumble across with a stranger’s hand already down the front of his jeans. And, okay, maybe that’s also more information than Patrick needs, but saying it now isn’t really any more humiliating than it had been to discover that all the success he’d thought he’d built for himself had been a lie, and not even a particularly carefully curated one at that. And so he’d turned his back on it—on them—and had run away to the only place he could think to go, Schitt’s Creek and his best (and only) friend.

He’d regretted it almost immediately.

But then the regret had faded with time, when the horrible newness of his situation had settled into familiarity and he’d started to want something more for himself more than he wanted the money back.

“Stevie’s an old friend,” he says, “and her great aunt had left her the house, so she said I could stay with her as I tried to figure out what came next. And then the general store that was here went out of business, so I sold my car and put the money toward all of this.”

He gestures at the products all around them. He’s proud of it. Even if he still isn’t totally sure of what he’s doing, even if at the end of the day this is all a terrible failure, he’s still fiercely proud that he’s managed to do it on his own. And though he isn’t fond of children, he imagines this must be a bit what it’s like to have them, to be able to look at something you had a part in making and see yourself in it.

Patrick is looking at him so softly that it’s almost like he can see that feeling, like he can somehow see past skin and meat and bone, down down down into that cradled, tender part of David’s heart where his hope and his joy and his self-worth reside, fragile as butterfly wings. It’s an almost painfully uncomfortable feeling, to be seen that way, and David has to make some self-deprecating joke to detract from the way it feels a bit like his insides are being scraped out with a grapefruit spoon.

“And if it doesn’t work out, I guess I can always try for a music career.”

Patrick’s lips twitch toward a smile, but he doesn’t let David get away with the joke, not really. “Well for what it’s worth, which I know probably isn’t much since we just met,” he says with a shrug, “I think it’s brave, starting over like that. And I think your store— it has a lot of potential.”

He’s right that it shouldn’t be worth much, but it still eases some of that messy knot of anxiety tangled in David’s stomach anyway. “Thank you,” he says, quiet but sincere. The curve of Patrick’s mouth goes soft and sweet, the feeling of it hooking in under David’s ribs and dragging yet another confession from his lungs before he can stop it. “I don’t really know what I’m doing though.”

That, of all things, makes Patrick laugh. (Four, David counts.) “Well, you’re doing a pretty good job of faking it then, but…” His laughter smoothes out into something quieter: some thoughtful, fluttering thing that David can’t identify. “Maybe you just need some help,” he says, an inexplicable flush of pink rising prettily in his cheeks. “You could consider finding a business manager.  Or— or a partner.”

A partner.

It’s David’s turn to laugh. “I’ll get right on that,” he says, wondering what kind of idiot would actually get himself into business with David Rose.

 

*

 

“We went to the Wobbly Elm _last_ weekend,” Stevie whines. “There are no randoms left for us to find there—just regulars. And I’m not hooking up with anyone who’s a regular at the Wobbly Elm.”

David looks across to where she’s moping in the passenger seat. He’d volunteered to drive, since she’d been pregaming for an hour before they’d left the house, which, fine, was mostly his fault because he’d taken so long to get ready. But if he’d known that she wanted to go out tonight, he would have come home much earlier, rather than hanging around the store with Patrick.

“Stevie, at this point, _we’re_ regulars at the Wobbly Elm.”

“Exactly.”

She gives him a pointed look and shudders, and he can’t help but laugh. Neither of them is keen to relive their long ago, ill-advised fling; they’re much better off as friends than they ever would have been as anything more.

If Stevie is insistent on other options, however, there’s only one choice: Elmdale. Some wild, temerarious part of David’s brain reminds him that Patrick is in Elmdale tonight, but that’s certainly not why he agrees so easily. He’s definitely not hoping that they stumble into a bar to find Patrick sitting by himself. That maybe they talk some and drink more, that Patrick admits he’s a little less straight than David believes him to be, that they fall quiet then and he puts that tidy, pink, kissable mouth of his to good use. Nope. That would be insane. Because Patrick is straight and life isn’t a fantasy and David doesn’t need to be attracted to unavailable, guitar-playing business majors anyway, no matter how cute they or their mouths might be.

He pulls onto the highway, cranks up the radio, and forgets all about Patrick Brewer. After all, the moon is bright, the night is young, and his tipsy best friend is unabashedly belting out some classic Whitney at his side—what more could he possibly want?

 

Elmdale has a surprising number of bars for such a small, otherwise shitty town, but then David supposes that being a small, otherwise shitty town is probably why it has so many bars in the first place. What else is there to do out here in the middle of nowhere?

They’ve tossed back a couple rounds of polar bear shots at the Rattlesnake, stuck it out to listen to a few deeply tragic karaoke sets at the Singing Martini, and dropped far too much of Patrick’s sofa rent on the closest thing to craft cocktails that Elm County can seem to manage at Bittersweet. The randoms have yet to pan out, but David is teetering happily on that razor edge between buzzed and drunk and finds that he doesn’t mind so much if their prospects for the night are looking pretty bleak.

“The gauntlet!” Stevie whisper-yells as she drowns the last of her Boulevardier and pulls her worn leather jacket back over her shoulders.

“ _One_ more,” David replies, holding up a stern finger. “One. That’s it.” There are four more increasingly awful bars within walking distance, and every time they come out here to drink, Stevie likes to try to “run the gauntlet” and hit all seven bars in one night.

The most they’ve ever made it through is five, and that had been the messy kind of night that David hadn’t had since he’d left New York. He’d enjoyed it far less than all those old times he’d remembered, and his two-day hangover has served as a palpable reminder every time that Stevie’s wanted to attempt it since.

She pouts at him, turning those big, beautiful brown eyes his way, but that ploy hasn’t had an effect on him in years now. “Pick one,” he reiterates. “The last one for tonight. Then we’re hitting the diner and going home.”

Her eye roll is violent enough to register on a seismograph, but she agrees, “Fine. Blue Goose,” and they’re off again, out into the night. The moon is tucked behind a solid layer of clouds now, the air heavy and thick, the sharp smell of coming rain weighing on them like fog. David hopes, for the sake of his hair and his snowy white shoes, that it holds off until they get home, and he slips his arm through Stevie’s, quickening their pace down the block to tonight’s last stop.

Blue Goose is definitely the part of the gauntlet they frequent least often: it’s a rundown little hole-in-the-wall with a seldom-used stage taking up too much of what could have been valuable seating space and all the aesthetic appeal of a smelly old boot abandoned on the side of the highway. If they’d wanted to spend the night drinking warm beer out of smudged glasses, they could have stayed in Schitt’s Creek, but Blue Goose’s one saving grace is that it’s always crowded. Cheap, straightforward drinks make for a popular hangout for locals, and if Stevie wants a chance to save tonight’s hookup goals, Blue Goose is her last hope.

The small bar is extra crowded tonight for some reason, and they have to elbow their way through throngs of people to make it to the bar. Stevie disappears into the press of the crowd with a grin and a wink as soon as she’s gotten herself a beer, leaving David alone with his soda and lime, surrounded by far too many people with far too few teeth. It’s a good thing for Stevie that her standards are lower than his; as soon as she’d said Blue Goose he’d known his prospects for the evening were entirely gone, a point justified with one look at the loud, sloppy clientele churning all around him, so he weaves his way over to a stool on the far end of the bar where the crowd is thinner at least and starts in on the process of sobering himself up.

Apparently, he needs it too because it’s only when everyone around him breaks into applause that he realizes the source of the awful, warbling ballad he’d been hearing is up on the dusty little stage, a woman in a magenta button-down and bolo tie taking an exuberant bow. Dear god, he’s found himself in the middle of some kind of open mic night: a scene out of his actual nightmares. Suddenly feeling rather ill, he looks frantically around for Stevie, hoping she’ll materialize out of the crowd and rescue him from this hell.

She’s nowhere to be found, so he shoots off a text, a code red, 911, full-blown emergency text telling her to get her ass back here if she hasn’t found someone yet. It is absolutely, one hundred percent time to fucking go.

He throws back the rest of his soda and lime and makes for the door. She can meet him outside or, if things get really desperate, in their usual booth at the diner next door; it depends on how much of these tortured performances he can still hear out on the sidewalk.

He’s five steps from that blissful freedom when the introduction of the next singer worms its way through the panic and disgust and sheer and absolute horror throbbing hot in his ears. Patrick Brewer. Somewhere in that hellish mix of sounds, she’d said the name Patrick Brewer, and though his escape is so close, though he can taste the sharp earthiness of the cool night air, David finds himself turning back around.

He had forgotten. He’d resolved to forget about Patrick on the drive to Elmdale, and after five drinks, it seems he’d been successful. He’d forgotten that Patrick was out here tonight, playing in some bar here in Elmdale, that this is the entire reason he’d come to town in the first place. He’d forgotten that there was a one in seven chance he’d walk into a bar tonight and find Patrick Brewer there, and that with each piece of the gauntlet they tackled, the chance they’d find him in the next bar rose and rose and rose.

He should leave, he thinks. He should leave before Patrick plays a single note. He should leave because what if Patrick is horrible? What if he’s horrible and he discovers David was here tonight and he asks what David thought? What if David has to crush his hopes and dreams and tell him that perhaps it would be better to stick to corporate whatever whatever instead? (And what if he’s good, David asks himself, though he won’t allow himself to think beyond that, to imagine the inevitable consequences that come with the answer.) He should leave.

But before he can, Patrick is there on stage, a light blue shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows and a guitar slung across his chest. The sight of him makes David warm all over, like stepping out of a shadow and into the sun, and he should probably be more worried about that than he is, but he tells himself that it’s the burn of the liquor or it’s a flash of secondhand embarrassment or it’s just that he gets horny when he drinks.

Up on stage, Patrick gives a quick thank you to the crowd’s polite applause as he adjusts the microphone and, without further preamble, starts to play.

The music is soft, and David has to strain to hear it over the buzz of the room. Some part of him still wants to turn away, to run, but then Patrick closes his eyes and begins to sing.

_Take your eyes off of me so I can leave_ __  
_I'm far too ashamed to do it with you watching me_ __  
_This is never-ending, we have been here before_ _  
_ _But I can't stay this time cause I don't love you anymore_

David knows this one. It’s a surprising choice—it’s hard to cover someone like Adele and do it any kind of justice—but the biggest surprise is Patrick himself. He’s good. He’s really fucking good. He’s good enough that that part of David that still wants to run screaming from the room settles down to listen, too.

_Please stay where you are_ __  
_Don’t come any closer_ __  
_Don’t try to change my mind_ _  
_ _I’m being cruel to be kind_

It’s just a different enough take on the song that if David didn’t know Adele’s entire discography so well, he might not recognize it for what it is. Patrick has made it his own, though the fragile heartbreak of the words remains.

_I can’t love you in the dark_ __  
_It feels like we’re oceans apart_ __  
_There is so much space between us_ __  
_Maybe we’re already defeated_ _  
_ _Ah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah everything changed me_

There’s something raw and real and startlingly intimate about Patrick’s performance. It feels a little like peering in at a well of guilt and grief buried deep in his gut. Like despite the sea of people surrounding him, this could be Patrick alone in his house, picking at his guitar as he works his way through things he’s trying to find the courage to say.

David thinks about the way Patrick had looked at him earlier when he had talked about his life before and about his store, had looked at David like he could see him. And here in the middle of a shitty music competition in a trashy Elmdale bar, David thinks that maybe he can see Patrick, too.

_Please don't fall apart_ __  
_I can't face your breaking heart_ __  
_I'm trying to be brave_ _  
_ _Stop asking me to stay_

_That's why I can't love you in the dark_ __  
_It feels like we're oceans apart_ __  
_There is so much space between us_ __  
_Maybe we're already defeated_ __  
_Cause ah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah everything changed me_ _  
_ _And I-I-I-I-I don't think you can save me_

As the final note rings and Patrick opens his eyes, David finally manages to turn and slip out the front door. He sucks in long, shaking gulps of the night air, trying to calm the frantic thump-thump-thump of his heart, beating against his ribs like it’s trying to escape.

Overhead, the first clap of thunder rumbles through the dark.

 

*

 

After the hot, cramped confines of the bar, the diner next door makes for a welcome oasis. David sits alone in a spacious booth, sucking down coffee and waiting for Stevie. It takes less time and less coffee than he expects to sober him up—he thinks Patrick’s performance may have done most of the work on that on its own. Neither the time nor the caffeine, however, even begins to touch this jittery sting of attraction that has leeched its way beneath his skin.

It’s bad. It’s very, very bad. Patrick is straight, and he’s still here for two more nights, and David can’t be sitting around fawning after him until he finally leaves. He’s just going to have to keep his distance, he supposes, lest Patrick see it all written there on his face.

He sees me, David thinks. He’s going to see this.

Fuck. He’s so fucked.

There’s a text from Stevie finally that says _Go home_ , followed by a long string of incomprehensible emojis he takes to mean that she’s snagged herself a random after all and that he can finally pour himself back into the car and head home for the night.

Thankfully, when he pulls into the drive, Patrick’s car is not at the curb, and David breathes a sigh of relief that he might be able to crawl into bed before Patrick returns. No awkward conversations. No chance that he’ll make some ill-conceived pass he’ll regret in the morning.

He heads for the shower first, letting the heavy beat of the water against his skin drive away all his thoughts for a while, and after brushing his teeth and applying his usual evening moisturizer and leaving a stack of bedding on the coffee table in the living room, he retreats to his bedroom for the night, shutting the door behind him, trying to close all thoughts of Patrick out with it.

 

He wakes with a start, the kind of sudden lurch into consciousness that leaves you peering into shadows to see what monsters might be lurking there. There’d been a sound, something sudden and startling, that had woken him; he can still hear it echoing around in the hollow, trembling pit of his stomach.

Or maybe it’s just the rain beating down against his window.

But then the noise comes again, and David jumps before his brain can recognize it. Knocking. Someone is knocking on his bedroom door. He swallows down the acrid panic rising in his throat and pulls on his slippers, yanking the door open to find Patrick looking up at him on the other side.

“Uh,” he says, and David squints against the hallway light as he waits for Patrick to find his point. Whatever it is, it had better be a good one if he’s waking David up in the middle of the fucking night. “There’s— there’s a problem,” he says finally, pointing back toward the living room.

“Is it a moth? Or a spider?” David asks, his voice rising far higher than he’d like. “Or a burglar? Because I don’t do any of those.”

“No, it’s— There’s a leak. Over the sofa. It’s all wet.”

“What?”

“Um, yeah, it’s raining pretty hard out there, and Stevie warned me about the buckets and all, but I guess it spread.”

David slips past Patrick into the living room, watching water drip steadily from a brand new, dark stain on the ceiling. Fuck. He hadn’t called the fucking plumber or whoever, and now there’s another fucking leak.

“We should probably… do something,” Patrick says, and David’s very aware that they should do something because water is pouring through their fucking ceiling right now, but for the life of him he can’t think of what. Do plumbers make housecalls at ass o’clock at night? “David,” Patrick says firmly, and he finally stops staring at the drip long enough to look at Patrick. “Do you have a bowl or another bucket or something?”

A bowl. Yes. Okay. David can find a bowl. That’s… that’s practical. And manageable. That’s something he can do. He stumbles into the kitchen and digs around in the cabinets until he finds a giant, gaudy punch bowl that Stevie’s aunt must have last used sometime around 1970 from the looks of it. When he emerges back into the living room, Patrick has shoved the sofa out from under the leak, and David slides the bowl onto the floor directly underneath.

“Do you have extra towels?” Patrick asks. “And maybe a fan or something?”

“Hall closet,” David says, pointing toward the door just beyond the bathroom, and as Patrick goes to fetch the towels, he slips into Stevie’s room and steals the box fan she keeps at the foot of her bed. It’s not like she’s going to need it tonight anyway.

Side by side, he and Patrick press towel after towel into the soaked cushions of the sofa, drawing out as much of the water as they can. When they’re left with a pile of sopping towels and three, still-damp cushions, Patrick props them up against the side of the coffee table and aims the fan at them. “Hopefully this will dry them out overnight.”

Overnight.

Patrick is supposed to sleep on the sofa overnight.

The thought only occurs to David once he sees the cushions lined up there enjoying the breeze: where is Patrick going to sleep now? Patrick seems to be coming to the same realization at the same time. “Ummmmmm…” he says, and they both stare at the stripped-down sofa. “Do you have extra blankets? I can— I can sleep on the floor.”

Ew, no. The sofa was a bad enough option. But the floor? David won’t even walk around barefoot in this house. He’d seen the pictures of how it had looked when it had first been bequeathed to Stevie, and no matter how often he vacuums and sweeps and mops and scrubs, it’s not going to suck out the decades of dust and dirt that have bonded to every surface. The last thing anyone needs is to sleep with their face anywhere near these floors. He’d probably contract some kind of carpet-borne illness, and David really doesn’t need their beautiful, butter-voiced houseguest to become infected with some horrible, disfiguring, incurable disease just because Stevie’s family didn’t know how to clean regularly. It just wouldn’t be good for their fledgling sofa rental business, he tells himself. That’s why it matters. It’s not that it’s Patrick in particular. He’d feel the same about anyone being forced to sleep on their floor. He can already imagine the Yelp reviews.

There’s Stevie’s bed, but she’d definitely kill David if he let Patrick sleep there. She’ll probably kill him just for sneaking in to steal her fan actually, but he doesn’t want to tempt fate. There’s the shitty, old motel up the road—he could maybe rent Patrick a room there, though he’s probably just as likely to contract some kind of motel hepatitis there as he is carpet tuberculosis or whatever here.

No, the best option is also by far the stupidest one, but David’s no stranger to making stupid decisions, and as far as they go, this one is at least easy to make. “You can, um, you can just sleep with me. I mean, in my bed. We— we can share.”

Patrick’s eyes go wide, and David hurries to reassure him.

“I mean, only if you want to. I just— The floor seems like a bad time, and my bed is definitely big enough for both of us, and I just figured you’d sleep better in an actual bed, and you paid Stevie for the sofa so it hardly seems fair to ask you to sleep on something worse than that, and—”

“It’s fine,” Patrick interjects. “We can— we can share your bed.”

His feet suddenly become the most interesting thing in the room, judging by the way that he stares at them, and David doesn’t know what that means, what it means that Patrick won’t look at him now. Is he embarrassed? Upset? Is he only agreeing because he feels he has no other option? If he wants to risk carpet dysentery, well, David would highly advise against it—has already in fact—but it’s not like he’s going to stop Patrick from sleeping on the floor either if that’s what he really wants to do, if sleeping in David’s bed makes him uncomfortable.

David has a sudden flashback to the existential crisis he’d had in the diner earlier. Maybe Patrick had seen after all, had seen the things David had feared his face might show. Maybe he knows that David is attracted to him, that David had fallen asleep trying to remember the precise way his fingers had moved as he’d plucked out each note of his song, the way his brow had wrinkled when he’d reached the chorus, the way his voice had rung out across the bar and burrowed its way down into David’s bones, raw and bloodied and true.

“Thank you,” Patrick says, and he isn’t looking at his feet anymore. He’s looking at David with clear eyes and flushed cheeks, and David doesn’t know what it means. He doesn’t know what that look means or why it makes him feel like he’s perched on a cliff, leaning out over the edge to look down.

“You’re welcome,” he says because he doesn’t know what else to say. Because what he actually wants to say instead isn’t words at all. It’s a press of his lips against that thankful mouth. It the feel of all that pink heat blossoming across Patrick’s face underneath the pads of his fingers.

After a long, quiet moment, Patrick blinks and steps away. “If it won’t bother you,” he says, grabbing up his bag from the floor beside the coffee table, “I’m gonna take a shower. You can, you know, go back to bed or whatever if you want.”

“Oh, um, yeah.” It’s a good idea, David thinks. Maybe he can fall back asleep before Patrick gets out of the shower and make this whole thing less awkward than it’s already bound to be. “I’ll just— I’ll leave the light on for you.”

With a nod, Patrick retreats to the bathroom, and David gathers up all the wet towels and tosses them into the laundry hamper. He’ll deal with them tomorrow. After washing his hands in the kitchen, scrubbing off all that rain-and-sofa water, he checks that the front door is locked and the bowl under the new leak isn’t too full, and he crawls back into bed.

 

Sleep, of course, eludes him, thanks to the ceaseless fluttering of nerves in his belly: butterflies, he thinks, though the term doesn’t feel quite accurate. It’s more like he’s swallowed a cactus whole, and with every roll of anxiety, it tumbles around inside him, poking and piercing him anew. And before he can find a way to ease the feeling of it, Patrick is there. Patrick is in his open doorway, barefoot and pajama-clad, his hair sticking up in soft, damp peaks all over his head.

“Hi,” he says, like he hadn’t expected David to still be awake.

“Hi.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” He lingers in the doorway like he’s uncertain if he’s really welcome.

The trouble, of course, is that he’s far too welcome, and David carefully schools his face as he scoots farther toward the edge of the bed, making more room for Patrick beside him. “It’s the least I can do.”

After another lifetime of hesitation, or maybe it’s only a few seconds that feel like a small eternity, Patrick finally closes the door, turns out the lamp, and slips beneath the covers. They aren’t touching—and David is careful to keep his eyes trained on the ceiling, his back firmly pressed against the mattress—but he can feel Patrick’s presence there all the same. It’s been a long while since David has shared a bed with anyone, longer still since sharing with someone with all their clothes still on.

It’s an old habit, he tells himself, that makes the urge to roll over and press himself into Patrick’s side or all along his back so strong. A muscle memory, borne of too many reckless nights spent in too many unfamiliar beds, where sleep was never a priority—just skin and sweat and the sharp, terrible need to connect the only way he was allowed, the only way he knows how.

‘I, uh, I saw Stevie,“ Patrick says, his voice softer in the darkness. ”At the bar, I mean.“

Fuck, he knows. He knows David was there, and his heart pounds so loudly in his throat he’s sure Patrick must be able to hear it. “Oh?” he manages around the heavy, throbbing beat.

“She was with someone, but I thought— I don’t know. I was curious if—”

All the air in David’s lungs comes rushing out at once like a balloon stuck with a pin, leaving him deflated and flat.

Stevie. Patrick’s curious about Stevie.

Of course he is. Because like Patrick, Stevie is beautiful and funny and quick, and Patrick is interested in her, and David’s sure they’ll make a very happy couple and run off into the sunset to have a yachtful of babies or buy a mortgage or build some kind of white fence or whatever it is that happy couples do.

“Oh, that was just, like, a hookup. For the night,” David explains, swallowing heavily against the bitter burn in his throat. “So if you, um, if you want to ask her out tomorrow, or whatever, I’m sure— I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Oh, no, um, I’m not— I’m not interested in Stevie.”

Hope strikes against David’s caution, sparking like flint on steel. “O-okay.”

“It was dumb actually,” Patrick says with a little self-deprecating laugh. “I just thought maybe you two had gone out tonight, and— and if she was there that maybe— maybe you were there, too.”

Oh.

Patrick is asking about—

David hadn’t intended for him to know. He didn’t want to talk about Patrick’s song or his voice or his rolled-up sleeves. He didn’t want to talk about how the whole performance had left him breathless in a way that was unfamiliar and unexpected and entirely unforgettable. But Patrick is asking. He’s specifically not asking about Stevie; he’s asking about David. Asking if David was there.

He closes his eyes and confesses. “Um, well. Yes. I— I was there. For a little while. I saw you play.”

When Patrick doesn’t respond, David risks a look at him, finding him watching David across their pillows with his lips pressed together like he’s trying not to smile. “And?”

“And what?” David knows what, but he isn’t going to make it easy; if Patrick wants David to compliment him, he’s going to have to fish for it.

He shakes his head. “Was it as bad as Lindsay Lohan or whoever?”

“Paris Hilton. And no one is as awful as that. Not even that bolo tie lady who went before you.”

“Well, that bolo tie lady was also invited back for the finals tomorrow,” Patrick says, “so that’s not really giving me a lot of confidence.”

David rolls his eyes and finally turns onto his side, facing Patrick, though he’s still careful to keep as much space between them as he can. “Fine. You were… not unimpressive.”

“Aw, it’s so sweet when you put it that way,” Patrick says but he’s laughing, the mattress shaking gently beneath them. “Next are you gonna tell me that the work I did at your store today was ‘not unhelpful’?”

“Shut up,” David says, his lips curling too happily around the words for them to have any real bite. “What are you gonna play tomorrow night for your big finale then?”

“Mmm, that’s a good question.”

“You don’t know?”

“I had something planned, but…” Patrick trails off, his gaze focused on some distant point David can’t see.

“But?” he prompts when Patrick’s been quiet too long.

Like his voice, Patrick’s face is also softer in the dark. Younger. Less certain. He hitches up a shoulder in a shrug. “Thought I might switch it up a bit.”

The words tilt up at the end, like he’s asking David rather than telling him, and there’s something about the line of Patrick’s mouth and the way his shoulder doesn’t quite settle comfortably back into place and the long, irregular pause before he takes his next breath. There’s something anxious there, David thinks. Something shy. He recognizes it like he would recognize his own reflection in the mirror. He recognizes it because it looks terribly similar to the anxious, shy thing burrowed between his own ribs.

That horrible wellspring of hope buried down inside him bubbles up around it.

“Why so?” he asks, though he suspects—he hopes—that he might already know the answer. That he already knew the answer as soon as Patrick had said _I’m not interested in Stevie_.

Patrick swallows thickly, and his words are soft like a confession. “I found other inspiration.”

Heat flares up under David’s skin, and with Patrick’s eyes still on him, he gives quiet thanks for the cover of darkness. He wants to ask more—he wants to be sure—but the question sticks in his throat. Perhaps he isn’t quite brave enough to hear the answer.

“You, um, you should come. Tomorrow night,” Patrick says, “If you’re not busy.”

Maybe David has his answer after all.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, maybe I will.”

Patrick’s smile is full and bright, all of his hesitance melting away into something sweeter, and the image of it lingers in David’s mind as he drifts off to sleep.

 

*

 

The sheets are cold.

When David wakes, blinking against the sunlight streaming in through the window over the bed, Patrick is gone, and the sheets on his side of the bed—the other side of the bed, he corrects—are cold. For a moment David wonders if he imagined it all, if he’d spent the night tucked into bed beside nothing more than a ghost, but he risks rolling across the mattress and burying his face in the pillow there. It smells like Patrick. He shouldn’t even know what Patrick smells like, but it smells like him anyway, proof that he’d been more tangible than some wishful vision David had dreamed to life. Proof that he’d been here. Proof that he’s gone, doubt settling heavily into the space he’d left behind.

David had been sure when he’d gone to sleep. Not _sure_ sure perhaps, but sure enough that there was at least a possibility, that there was reason for hope. But now that he’s alone in his bed, Patrick having vanished into thin air, his certainty has evaporated right along with him.

He pulls on his slippers and shuffles out of his room, frowning when Patrick doesn’t surprise him from the bathroom doorway this time, isn’t waiting in the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee. His bag is on the coffee table, the buckets and bowls empty, the sofa back in one piece and in its rightful place in front of the television, but Patrick himself is nowhere to be found. Fled, most likely. Disappeared as soon as the sun had come up and he’d had an excuse to get away from David and his messy attraction.

David sighs heavily and does his best to carry on with his day the same as he would have with or without Patrick.

The store at least is peaceful, and the methodical rhythm of unpacking and sorting stock, carefully arranging it for display, soothes a bit of that raw, tender feeling scraped across his sternum. There’s a part of him, however, that seems to be listening for the jingle of the bell over the door in spite of himself, but the only sound it makes is when David slips away for a long, lonely lunch at the cafe.

He’s just locking up at the end of the day when his phone chimes with an incoming text, and he pulls it from his pocket, expecting it to be Stevie.

Instead, it’s an unfamiliar number.

_Hi David. It’s Patrick. Got your number from Stevie._

Oh god. David plops down on the front step of the store, ignoring the concerned look of a woman passing by with a stroller. What could Patrick possibly want? He’d disappeared for the day, he’d gone out of his way to get David’s number from Stevie instead of just finding him and talking to him in person—clearly this isn’t going to be good. David’s heart hammers painfully in his chest, and his phone chimes again.

_If you can’t come tonight that’s okay. I understand._

There it is. Patrick is uninviting him to his show. Whatever he had thought of the idea last night, he had obviously come to his senses this morning. He doesn’t want David there after all. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. David buries his head in his hands, pressing the heels of his palms hard against the sting of his eyes. It’s stupid, he knows. It was stupid to be interested in Patrick in the first place. He knew better.

And it was even stupider to think that Patrick could possibly be interested in him. He was probably just trying to be polite last night—that’s just the kind of person he seems to be—and he hadn’t expected David to actually take him up on his offer, and he’d probably just lain awake all night trying to figure out how to get out of it, fleeing this morning so that David wouldn’t see the bags under his eyes and know that it was all his fault.

Two more texts arrive in quick succession, and David wraps his misery around himself like a shroud, burrowing down into the familiar comfort of it, before he opens the messages.

_But if you can, I’m up fifth, so I’ll be on probably around 9:30 or so._

_Hope to see you there :)_

What?

Ignoring the fact that Patrick still uses emoticons instead of emojis, David doesn’t know what those messages mean. They might as well be written in Mandarin for as much as he can even start to understand them. Is this just more of Patrick being nice? Is he really that bad at blowing David off that he can’t even uninvite him without also reinviting him? Is it some kind of sick joke? Is he hoping David will show up just so that he can point to him from the stage and call him out for being an absolute dumbass for thinking he could have had any kind of a chance?

The sheer number of possibilities is giving him a headache. He needs an aspirin or possibly a bottle of wine. He needs to stop being interested, stop being invested enough to care what Patrick means in the first place. He needs…

He needs a second opinion.

And unfortunately, that means he needs Stevie.

He finds her camped out on the sofa, eating gummy bears by the handful, eyes glued to a _Drag Race_ rerun. He holds his phone in front of her face.

“What does this mean?”

“That you’re about to get kicked in the shins for blocking the tv?”

“Stevie,” he whines.

She flops over onto the arm of the sofa instead. “Kinda busy right now.”

“And I’m kinda having a crisis right now.”

Still focused on Asia and the Vixen lip-syncing for their lives, she pops another gummy bear into her mouth. “Is this about Patrick?”

David’s hand drops back to his side. “What— Why would— Why would you assume that?”

With a hefty roll of her eyes, she pauses the episode and pins him with a look. It’s a look that says, _you’re an idiot_ , which he already knows, though he doesn’t appreciate this reminder in his time of need. “When he got back earlier, the first thing he did was ask for your number, and now here you are holding your phone in my face, asking me what a text message means. I may not do math, but I’m pretty sure I can still add that one up.”

She reluctantly drags the phone from his hand, flipping back through the last few messages, while he scrunches up his face and waits for her inevitably scathing second opinion.

“He said he hopes to see you there.”

“I know, but like, what does that mean?”

“I think it means he hopes to see you there.”

God, she’s stubborn. Normally he loves her for that, but when it’s aimed at him, he finds he likes it a little less. Only a little though. He collapses onto the sofa beside her, squishing his cheeks between his hands, the pressure of them all that seems to be holding him together.

“He slept in my bed last night,” he confesses, and Stevie, predictably, perks up at that. “We didn’t— It wasn’t like that. The fucking roof was leaking again, and the sofa got all wet”—she looks down at the cushion below her in horror, which would be funny if David weren’t so preoccupied—“so I let him sleep in my bed. And this morning he was just— he was gone. Like, _gone_ gone. Like, disappeared in the night like the birthday clown gone.”

“Well, at least he didn’t paint your face.”

He scowls at her.

“Look, David,” she says, grimacing as if the words are shards of glass being dragged up from her throat. “He went on some kind of hike this morning, which is the kind of thing most people get up early for. He didn’t disappear. And now he’s saying he hopes you’ll be there to see him perform tonight, and I think you have to just take him at his word. So stop being so… you… about it”—he scoffs—“and go get dressed because it sounds like you have a date.”

For once she’s not looking at him like she’s fucking with him, and all that hope he’d had last night surges up again, nearly drowning him. “You think so?”

“It’s either that, or he’s a serial killer plotting to make you his next victim, but either way you’re not gonna find out sitting here on the sofa with me.”

There were probably less anxiety-inducing ways to make that point, he thinks, but he gets what she’s saying nonetheless. He just hopes she’s right.

“And remember,” she says, her eyes bright and laughing. “No fucking in shared living spaces.”

“I hope you choke on those gummy bears,” he replies, but he gives her a little smile before he stands and heads for his room to decide what to wear.

 

*

 

Blue Goose is less crowded tonight thankfully, and David feels like he can actually breathe. The final round of the music competition is already in full swing by the time he arrives, so he orders himself a gin and tonic and slides into a seat at an empty table near the back of the room, grimacing as the man on stage tries to hit the kind of note that should only be attempted by Freddie Mercury.

A glance at his phone tells him that he’s right on time, which hopefully means that Patrick is up next and David won’t have to endure any more of these amateur musicians than absolutely necessary. Speaking of Patrick, David cranes his neck to look across the smattering of patrons, but he doesn’t see Patrick or any sign of his tell-tale, all-blue wardrobe. The nerves jumping up and down in his stomach like anxious little acrobats bounce even higher, adding another full somersault or two to their routines.

But then Mr. Not Even Close to Freddie Mercury is taking a bow to a round of polite applause, and the emcee is announcing that their next performer is Patrick Brewer, and there he is walking on to the stage with his guitar. Tonight he’s in a close-fitting, sapphire blue sweater and a darker pair of jeans that cling beautifully to his hips and thighs, his hair a bit more ruffled in a way that makes David’s fingers itch with the desire to run them through it. It appears he isn’t the only one who dressed to impress tonight, and David tries not to look too pleased by that.

He fails miserably.

Patrick adjusts the mic and runs a hand through his hair. “I want to dedicate this song to someone who, well…” He clears his throat, and David’s heart stops. Don’t say it. Don’t say it, he begs. “He, um, he knows who he is. I hope.”

That earns Patrick a considerate little chuckle from the crowd, and David all but collapses with relief. If Patrick had said his name, had pointed him out here in this room full of strangers, he would have had to get up and walk right out the door. This isn’t much better, but it is better. He still would like to burrow down into the neck of his sweater, like a turtle pulling back into his shell, but at least no one will be looking at him, expecting to see him making Appropriate Reaction Faces for the situation, which he most certainly will not be able to do in this horrifically embarrassing nightmare.

While he obviously knew that Patrick would be singing again tonight, that Patrick had invited him here specifically to watch him sing tonight, it somehow had never occurred to him that Patrick would try to sing _to_ him tonight. As Patrick starts to play, David breathes deeply, in and out, and stares down at the yellowed, water-stained surface of the table. At the ice cubes melting in his empty glass. At his cuticles.

Anywhere but at Patrick.

The song is a bit quicker than last night, something bright and poppy, and Patrick’s voice when he starts to sing is soft but happy.

_I don’t know_ _  
_ _But I think I may be fallin’ for you_

Unwittingly, David’s head pops up. On stage, Patrick has his eyes closed again, but this time there’s no anguished little wrinkle between his brows like last night.

_Dropping so quickly_ __  
_Maybe I should keep this to myself_ _  
_ _Waiting till I know you better_

His heart is beating in his throat. David wonders if that’s normal, if your heart can just move around like that: a migrant organ.

_I am trying not to tell you_ __  
_But I want to_ __  
_I’m scared of what you’ll say_ __  
_And so I’m hiding what I’m feeling_ _  
_ _But I’m tired of holding this inside my head_

Patrick opens his eyes, and even though they hadn’t seen each other before the show, he finds David unerringly across the room, like he’d known exactly where he’d be, like he can feel the pull of David’s presence the same as David can feel his. He holds his gaze just long enough for David to be sure, to be certain that this song is for him, not just in dedication but in meaning, that Patrick is saying something to him, before he turns his gaze elsewhere in the crowd.

_I’ve been spending all my time_ __  
_Just thinking about you_ __  
_I don’t know what to do_ __  
_I think I’m fallin’ for you_ __  
_I’ve been waiting all my life_ __  
_And now I found you_ __  
_I don’t know what to do_ __  
_I think I’m fallin’ for you_ _  
_ _I’m fallin’ for you_

David’s itinerant heart crawls back down past his sternum and settles into the soft, sticky pit of his stomach, the hard, steady thump-thump of it echoing out from his core; David can feel it everywhere, his entire body pulsing with the force of it. He thinks about _It was very something to meet you, too_ and about _I think it’s brave_. He thinks about _I’m not interested in Stevie_ and about _I found other inspiration_. He thinks about Patrick’s eyes and his smile and about how his laugh feels like finding the home David thought he had lost. And he thinks maybe what Patrick is telling him is true.

As Patrick reaches the end of the song, his mouth smiles around the words.

_I can’t stop thinking about it_ __  
_I want you all around me_ __  
_And now I just can’t hide it_ __  
_I think I’m fallin’ for you_ _  
_ _I’m fallin’ for you_

As the last note hovers in the air, David thinks about that missed-step feeling that’s been swooping through his stomach since Patrick’s arrival, and he thinks that maybe that’s what this is. Maybe this is more than just attraction, more than a crush.

Maybe he’s been falling, too.

 

*

 

David runs.

Okay, so he wouldn’t admit that this is running, and there’s certainly no actual running involved, but he slips out the door, piles himself back into Stevie’s car, and finds himself on the highway before the applause from Patrick’s performance has probably even died away.

He just needs time to think. To adjust. He needs space, and he needs to smile into the darkness like an idiot, and he needs to scream and to laugh and to cry maybe a little and to remember how to fucking breathe. Because Patrick had said _I’m falling for you_ , and David knows now that he’s been falling, too, and he’s so unexpectedly, earnestly, stupidly happy that he feels like he might launch himself into the night like a firework, exploding into hot, sharp, joyous sparks across the sky.

But he’s also still David Rose. He’s still the man who people come to when they want a night of fun, not a lifetime of happiness. He’s still the one you fuck and forget, not the one you fall for. He’s still fucked up and damaged and so wary that no matter how badly he wants to trust this feeling, to trust Patrick, that there’s some sinister ulterior motive here or that it’s all just a ruse to get him into bed before Patrick has to leave in the morning. And he would do that, if that’s what Patrick wants, he knows that he would; after all, self-respect has never really been David’s thing. But Patrick had said _I’m falling for you_ , and David wants desperately for it to be true. Wants it more than he’s wanted anything in years and years and years, but he doesn’t know if Patrick means it. He doesn’t know because he’s talked himself into not knowing, the doubt twisting his veins into blue, bloodied knots beneath his skin.

At home, the wait for Patrick is agonizing, the two feelings mixing in his gut like bleach and ammonia, the noxious miasma of it nauseating him. Stevie at least has retreated to her room and isn’t here to see it or tease him about it or make it worse in that way that only she can seem to do. His knees bounce, and his skin turns red where he twists his rings around and around his fingers.

He wants to trust Patrick, but he doesn’t know if he can. He doesn’t know if he can shake off his own history enough to physically allow himself to. He wants to trust him and to tell him and to kiss him—god, how David wants to kiss him. He’s been thinking about it since that devastatingly teasing mouth had first smirked at him two nights ago. He’d thought about it in the kitchen clutching to his coffee like a life line and at the store as they’d put out bottles of toner. He’d thought about it tucked into his bed last night and alone with his thoughts and his disappointment this morning. He’d thought about it and thought about it, in the same way he sometimes thinks about going back to New York or patching things up with his parents, somewhere far enough back in his brain that he doesn’t have to really acknowledge it, thought about in that _it’s a terrible idea but a little fantasy never hurt anyone_ sort of way. But Patrick will be back any time now, and David is going to have to make a choice—to let this fantasy tip over into reality or leave it relegated to sad, wistful daydreams. He has to choose.

There’s the sound of a key in the lock, and David jumps to his feet, his nerves rising again in full force. Patrick opens the door and freezes at the sight of him. A hint of a smile crosses his face, so fast and fleeting before it’s gone it seems automatic, and that alone makes up David’s mind. Because for some inexplicable reason, the very sight of him makes Patrick smile, and that’s never been true of anyone. People have looked at David and wanted him. People have looked at David and hated him. But no one has ever looked at David and just been happy about it. Not like Patrick. No one, he thinks, has ever been like Patrick.

“You left,” Patrick says by way of greeting. He shuts the door softly and puts his guitar case down on the linoleum.

“I just…” David shakes his head. “I needed a minute.”

Patrick opens his mouth, some questioning look crossing his face before he shuts it down. “Okay,” is all he says, finally stepping into the living room.

“Did you—” David doesn’t want to ask; he knows the answer. He knows. That fleeting little smile told him what he needed to hear, but still he has to be sure. Because his history has told him one thing and Patrick is telling him another and he has to know the truth before that doubt dwelling inside him can well up like a spring and pour from his mouth, turbid and black. “Was that song for me?”

Patrick chuckles, stepping closer. “No,” he says, but he’s smiling in that way he does when he thinks David’s being funny. David shouldn’t even know that, shouldn’t be able to differentiate that smile from any other, and it’s a little bit terrifying that he can, a little bit thrilling, the thought of it trembling in his belly like laughter. Like joy. “No,” Patrick says again, “I was singing that for the other guy I’ve been flirting with all weekend.”

He steps in close enough that David can see the fine, happy lines at the corners of his eyes.

“And did you… mean it? What you sang to that other guy.”

“David,” Patrick says, and it sounds like _yes_. It sounds like _kiss me_.

So David does.

His hands find their way to Patrick’s jaw, cradling the strong, sturdy line of it, holding him there so David can control the pressure of it, the touch of their lips sweet but firm. It’s perfectly chaste, and Patrick kisses him back with such conviction that David is biting back a grin before they even break apart.

Then Patrick’s smiling, too, a gentle, soft thing, and David stops trying to hide it.

“I can’t believe you sang a Colbie Caillat song,” he blurts out because apparently kissing Patrick turns off the filter that normally keeps him from saying stupid things.

But Patrick’s still smiling, back to that teasing one now that makes his eyes sparkle. “Well I could have stolen your thunder and done ‘Always Be My Baby,’ but that seemed a little forward.” And then he leans in to kiss David again, lips parting just enough for him to slip his tongue along David’s lower lip, something hot sparking in David’s belly. He chases Patrick’s tongue with his own, letting his hands finally find Patrick’s waist and the delicious softness of his sweater, his fingers slipping down and under to seek out the heat of his skin.

Patrick groans like something in him has broken, and David would be worried if Patrick’s hands weren’t digging into the backs of his arms, pulling him even closer.

David kisses along Patrick’s jaw. “Should we take this to the bedroom?”

But Patrick’s pulling away then, his stubble scraping along David’s lips.

“Sorry,” he says, and David goes cold all over. Here it is. Here’s what he’d expected all along.. He only wishes it weren’t so soon. He starts to step away, but Patrick catches his hand. “No, no, I just— I need a minute,” he says, echoing David’s earlier words.

So David echoes Patrick’s response. “Okay.” He tries not to spiral while he waits, telling himself that Patrick had stopped him from leaving, that Patrick is still here holding his hand.

“I, um,” Patrick says, all that endless confidence he seems to possess ebbing away, some slight, nervous thing rising up in its place, “I’ve never done this before. With a guy I mean.”

“Oh.” If David had known, he would have kept his hands to himself. He would have kept his tongue to himself.

“It’s good,” Patrick says, brushing a thumb across the back of his knuckles. “It’s…” He laughs. “It’s so much better than good. But it’s just…” He takes a deep breath that wipes the smile from his face, and David misses it already. “I definitely need to take it slower than”—he swallows thickly—”than sleeping together tonight.”

“We can go as slow as you want,” David says. “If you want to— we can just share the bed again—it’s comfier than the couch—we can just, we can just do that or… Whatever you want,” he says. “Whatever you want.”

“I want—” Patrick doesn’t finish that sentence. Instead, he kisses David again, gently, like he’s afraid of doing any more. It’s so sweet and so soft that David feels like he’s turning inside out, his heart crawling outside of his skin, trying to get closer to that feeling. “I have to leave in the morning,” Patrick says with a little sigh, “but I want to— Can I see you again? Can we, I don’t know, meet up somewhere next weekend or something?”

“We can meet up whenever you like.”

“Even before 9 a.m.?”

“Don’t push it,” David says, smirking as he pulls Patrick in for one more kiss. He’d probably meet up at sunrise if that’s what Patrick really wanted, though David’s certainly not going to tell him that.

It’s unfair how good Patrick is at this, and one kiss inevitably turns into more. But as much as David would love for more to turn into _more_ , Patrick had said he wanted to go slow—despite the way he’s kissing David as if he also wouldn’t mind _more_ —and so David presses one last peck to his kiss-pinkened lips and takes a step out of his reach.

“That wasn’t very slow, was it?” Patrick admits, his chest rising and falling a little too fast.

“No, not really, but it’s fine. It’s… nice.” Nice to be wanted. Nice to be kissed well. Nice to know Patrick is having just as much trouble stepping away from this as David is. Just nice. “But I guess I should probably, you know, go to bed. By myself. Unless…”

Patrick smiles and shakes his head. “Slow,” he says, almost like he’s reminding himself. “But thank you.”

“For what?”

That grin on his face grows wide and playful. “For paying only 40% of the bills this month.”

David scoffs and rolls his eyes, turning away to hide the smile that he can’t seem to twist off of his face. “Goodnight, Patrick,” he calls.

Behind him, he can hear Patrick chuckle. “Goodnight, David.”

 

*

 

In the morning, Patrick leaves with a kiss and a promise to text. David just manages not to spiral into a panic about it, but only just. He remembers what Stevie had said yesterday about needing to take Patrick at his word, and he remembers the way Patrick had smiled after David had kissed him, and he tells himself it’s going to be okay.

Patrick texts him when he gets home, and he texts him that night before bed. He texts him the next day, too, and the day after that, and even the old, anxious voices in David’s head that like to pipe up from time to time find it hard to argue with that.

David goes back to the store, the workload a little easier after Patrick’s help over the weekend. He gets the insurance, and he calls Brenda about replacing the body milks, and he doesn’t find the moth, which he hopes means it never actually made it inside. He thinks about placing an ad for a business manager, like Patrick had suggested, but he can’t quite seem to make himself do it.

By the time Friday rolls around, the store is ready, and David is nervous but looking forward to an eventful weekend: the opening celebration is tonight, and on Sunday he’s meeting Patrick in Elm Valley for brunch, and it all feels a bit like Christmas Eve, like standing on the precipice of happiness.

And then there’s a line of people around the corner and the music’s low and the lights Patrick had wired are glowing soft and warm, and David tells himself he’s ready to do this and opens the doors. He’s busy then, busier than he expected to be, and in between all the small talk and the samples and the clarifications about the discount, he looks around at what he’s built and thinks for the first time, maybe this really will work.

He hands a receipt to the current customer in line, thanking them for stopping by, and reaches for the item the next patron has placed on the counter. It’s one of their more unique items, a pencil shaped like a twig, made by cute, old Mrs. Whittall out near Elm Glen. It’s utterly impractical—and incredibly fragile—but it had made David smile, and so he’d agreed to stock a few in the store to test out the market. He hadn’t really expected to sell any, especially not on the first day; Mrs. Whittall will be so excited when he calls her to let her know. “Is this for someone special?” David asks as he punches in the price. “Would you like me to put it in a gift—”

He looks up, and his heart stops beating. _This is how I die_ , he thinks for a moment before his blood finally starts pumping again.

“Patrick.”

He’s wearing that beautifully familiar smile, and in just four days David had already forgotten the way it feels when Patrick aims it at him. “Hi.”

“What— what are you doing here?” Would it be weird to pinch himself? This can’t possibly be real.

“It’s your big grand opening. Well, your ‘intimate opening celebration,’ but either way. I couldn’t miss it.” The look on his face grows terribly soft, and it takes every ounce of David’s willpower not to lean across the counter and kiss him.

“You’re not actually on the guest list,” he says instead.

“Oh, I know. I’m gate crashing. You should probably call the cops or something.”

“Well, fortunately I’m a _very_ generous person, which means I can probably let it slide. This time.”

“Good to know.”

David finds that he can’t look away, like if he blinks Patrick might not be here after all, and David desperately wants him to be. He hadn’t even realized how badly he wanted it until Patrick was suddenly standing here in front of him.

The next customer in line clears her throat, and he has to will himself not to kick her out of the store.

“You, uh, you didn’t answer the question,” he says, putting the pencil in a gift box anyway. “Is this for someone special?”

“Yeah,” Patrick replies, taking out his credit card. “I’ve got a date coming up with this guy that I really like, and I didn’t want to show up empty-handed.”

David blushes his way through the rest of the transaction, the pink in his cheeks burning bright crimson when Patrick winks as he hands him his receipt. He wants to ask one of the hundreds of questions swirling around his mind, but the next woman in line is getting impatient, and Patrick gives him a reassuring smile, so David lets it go for now, turning to the next customer with as much patience as he can manage. “Did you find everything okay today?”

 

The night wears on, and David’s stuck behind the cash, ringing up the never-ending line of customers, but every time he looks up, Patrick is still there, talking to Jocelyn about moisturizers or helping tiny Mrs. Hebert reach a basket on the top shelf. It feels strangely right, like some loose fragment of David’s life is settling into place.

 

Finally, the last customer has made his way out, and David locks the door behind him, turning to find Patrick leaning against the counter with a glass of wine in hand, looking for all the world like he belongs here.

Maybe he does.

“Oh, I’m sorry, we’re closed,” David tells him so that he doesn’t have to think too hard about that right now. Patrick lights up the way he does every time they do this, this back and forth, and David wonders how he didn’t realize Patrick was flirting with him all along.

“I’m not here to shop,” Patrick returns, putting down his wine glass and stepping closer. David is already reaching for him, getting his hands on Patrick’s hips as he leans in for a kiss.

It shouldn’t be possible to have missed this so much when it’s only been four days. When they’d only done this a few times before Patrick had left in the first place. It shouldn’t be possible for David to already need this the way he needs air.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” David says when they part. He still wants to pinch himself, just to be sure.

Patrick shuffles back a step, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s embarrassed. “I, uh, I couldn’t wait.”

David’s eyes go wide.

“I went home, and I couldn’t stop thinking about stuff. You know. You.” His cheeks are heated pink when he looks up again, but he holds David’s gaze. “And it turns out that, um, I don’t want to go slow after all.”

What does that mean? David doesn’t know. He knows what slow had meant last weekend, but what does it mean here, now, in this context? He shakes his head, confused, and Patrick lays it out plainly.

“I want to be here. With you. I want to give this a proper try.”

That’s— “What about… your job? Your whole life?” It’s crazy. Patrick is crazy, and David is even crazier for entertaining the idea at all, for the way that as soon as Patrick says it, David can see it. He can see date nights at the cafe, sharing mozzarella sticks, their feet bumping together beneath the table. He can see early mornings in bed, the sunlight soft and warm, glinting in Patrick’s hair like copper. He can see holding hands and kissing cheeks and dancing in each other’s arms. He can see everything he doesn’t even know he wants yet.

Patrick looks around at the store, his whole face radiating fondness; David recognizes it because he knows it’s how he looks at the store, too. “I thought, maybe if you were still looking for a business manager, I thought maybe I could apply.”

David laughs. It starts as some disbelieving little huff, but it grows until his whole body is trembling with it. Patrick wants to help him run the store. He wants to give this thing between them a proper try, as if anyone has ever thought David was worth properly trying things with. It’s crazy, and it’s ridiculous, and it’s hilarious, and it’s so mind-bendingly perfect that David can’t breathe.

“Are you sure?” he manages eventually, and Patrick all but sags with relief.

“I’ve spent most of my life not being sure,” he says. “This might be the first time I’ve been absolutely certain about anything.”

And then David is kissing him again because he can’t not be kissing him right now, his hands sliding into Patrick’s hair and down across his shoulders, pulling him closer, holding him here so he won’t somehow change his mind and leave.

“Does this mean I get the job?” Patrick asks when he manages to peel his mouth away from David’s.

David pretends to think about it. “I don’t know. I probably need to see a résumé. I mean, what are your qualifications?”

“Well,” Patrick says, smirking at him, and David can already tell that that look is going to be his undoing. “I am a business major.”

“Uh huh.”

“And I can wire lights from a YouTube tutorial.” His eyes dart back to David’s mouth.

“Uh huh.”

“And I’ve been told I’m an excellent kisser,” he says, leaning in again, but David can’t make it that easy so he pulls back when they’re just millimeters apart.

“Is that really a quality one should look for in a business manager?”

“Mm, maybe not. But it’s not a bad quality in a boyfriend.”

A boyfriend. That more than anything convinces David that Patrick is really in this. That he really wants to dive into all of this headfirst. And maybe it’s a terrible idea, maybe it will all fall apart somewhere down the road, but David wants to dive in, too. “I guess you’re hired then.” And he leans in again and lets Patrick kiss him.

It feels like coming home, and he lets himself relax into it.

Suddenly, Patrick pulls away once more, that stupid, playful, irresistible smile curling on his lips. “I also could use a place to stay. Do you maybe know any sofas I could crash on?”

David grins at him, wide and free. “I might know a place. And I bet we could even find you a bed there, if you don’t mind sharing.”

“Oh, I think I’d prefer it,” Patrick replies, and David kisses him once more.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr as [wild-aloof-rebel](http://wild-aloof-rebel.tumblr.com) (my Schitt's Creek blog) or [hudders-and-hiddles](http://hudders-and-hiddles.tumblr.com) (my main).


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